John pulls no punches in his coverage of the Giants and his
support of Barry Bonds. A must read for all San Francisco fans.
~ David Pinto ~Baseball Musings

John is my blogfather. Internet years are like dog years and it is a testament to John's passion and love for the game that he's still rocking and rolling after all these years.
~ Alex Belth ~Sports Illustrated

It's hard to do anything for five years, let alone do it well.... Analyst, gadfly, passionate fan and talented writer.
~ Will Carroll ~Under the Knife

On to the critical series of the year. Four games with the first-place Padres. Two wins isn’t enough. The Giants need to win at least three of four to have a realistic chance of catching San Diego.

Tonight, Matt Cain tries to continue the recent hot stretch by the starters, but the series will boil down to this:

Can the Giants get an early lead on the Padres, and make it stand up? The Padres bullpen has reduced the game to six-inning affair, not unlike the Yankees of 1996, with Mariano Rivera shutting down the seventh and eighth innings, and John Wettland closing out the ninth. If the Giants can get to Garland early tonight, it could set the tone for the whole series.

I’d love to see Sanchez on the bench tonight, maybe a lineup like this would be the way to go:

Torres
Sandoval
Huff
Posey
Uribe
Burrell
Guillen
Fontenot

Or something like that. Maybe start Schierholz and have Guillen as a late inning, men on base pinch hitter. Freddie Sanchez should be the pinch hitter when the bases are empty, and for God’s sake, stop using Ishikawa with men on base. In fact, stop using him as a pinch hitter at all. He’s been cover-your-eyes awful.

It’d be nice if Posey got hot again, but the season might be starting to catch up with him.

All commentary is the opinion of John J Perricone unless otherwise noted.
None of the opinions expressed should be construed as being endorsed by theSan Francisco Giants,
Major League Baseball, or any other organization mentioned herein.